THE reluctant acceptance of New Kingston's night-time blaze of music and fun has shifted and is heading to outright revolt by its residents, for whom peaceful sleep seems to have become a luxury.

New Kingston, a relatively small area - bounded by Trafalgar Road, Lady Musgrave Road, Old Hope Road, Oxford Road, Half Way Tree Road, and Hope Road - has developed into a hybrid of elaborate commercial activity, eateries, residences, hotels, a hub of financial firms, and nightclubs.

But as the metropolis blooms, a clash is emerging, of merriment versus slumber and the encroachment of commerce on residential bliss.
"Many of us have had to endure sleepless nights due to the many sessions (paid parties) that take place at the various locations around New Kingston," said president of the New Kingston Citizens Association (NKCA) Sean Newman in an email to the press written in January.

"Often, these sessions go well beyond the 2:00 am cut off point (for weekends) stipulated by law, and the music is played at such a high volume that sometimes windows will vibrate."

The NKCA turned to the press, Newman told the Sunday Observer Friday, after failing to get a response to correspondence to the Town Clerk at the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC), begging for action to curtail night noises and oversight of the legitimacy of businesses in the area.
"Clubs such as Mas Camp, Carlos Café, the Deck, Escape 24/7, as well as outdoor sessions held on Old Hope Road, operate very close to residences and play their music in the open air, causing much disturbance," said the NKCA email.

POTOPSINGH. commercial boom happened unintentially

"These events are even held on weeknights, robbing residents of a peaceful nights sleep when they have work the following day."
The citizen's association asserts that several businesses and nightclubs that have cropped up in the community are operating in residential areas, without the required 'change of use' permits for such operations.
But the Sunday Observer found no direct evidence of that claim, despite delving deep into the bins of the planning agencies for maps, plans and other documents.

The planning experts say that several businesses make use of a loophole in the city's planning law, the 40-year-old Kingston Town and Country Development Order of 1966, which allows them to operate legitimately - under the designation of 'shop'.

Leonard Francis, manager of development at National Environment and Planning Authority (NEPA), says the continual development of businesses is facilitated by the city's development order which identifies 'shop' as a commercial class, among 10 categories of commercial buildings.

The Dorchester, which fronts the congested Oxford Road, has apartments on top and a government agency at ground level. (Photos: Observer file)

The order defines shops as "buildings used for the carrying on of any retail trade or trade business wherein the primary purpose is the selling of goods by retail ... including a building used for the purpose of a hairdresser, undertaker, travel agency, betting agency, or as the receiving office for goods to be washed, cleaned or repaired or for any other purposes appropriate to a shopping area, but does not include a building used as funfair, garage, petrol filling station or bank."

But there is a move to plug the loophole, says Ruth Potopsingh, chair of the Town and Country Planning Authority (TCPA), a division of NEPA, by writing the designation out of the law.

The development order confines business and related activity within the zone bordered by Pawsey Road - east of Knutsford Boulevard, and by Holborn Road - west of Knutsford Boulevard, Dominica Drive and Trafalgar Road.

The other areas are zoned for residences.
But commerce activity has long since spilled outside the established boundaries, increasingly as New Kingston's reputation as a business hub flourished.

Now companies and apartments exist side by side, and even atop each other - as with the Dorchester apartments, whose ground floor houses the National Investment Bank of Jamaica.
The competition is unnerving for New Kingston's residents, who believe they are being crowded out.

"We want our residential areas to be protected," said Newman Friday.
"If you look at the situation now it seems that in the next 10 years the area will be nothing but commercial areas."

Businesses - several under the classification of 'shop' - are now fully entrenched on Belmont Road, which sits east of Pawsey Road, and a commercial corridor has opened up along both sides of Trafalgar Road.
Under this classification, proprietors are not required to seek local planning authority approval to change over from one 'shop' business to another on premises so designated.

They only require the authority's stamp of approval on standards established for businesses to operate.
The TCPA is in the process of updating the development order, and redefining the boundaries and zones of greater Kingston, New Kingston included.

The timeframe for completing the process is yet to be finalised, but some work has began, including the drafting of a map of the capital proposing the new zones for commerce, offices, industry, residences, and public spaces.

On that map, New Kingston has been refined, with its central core fully depicted in purple for 'commercial', while its outer ring is red for 'residential'.

Originally known as Knutsford Racecourse, New Kingston began its transformation in the 1960s, shed most of its dusty image in the late 1970s, and bloomed into a business hub by day and party central at night.

According to Potopsingh, the explosion of commercial activity was a spontaneous occurrence, but stayed on the fast track as businesses tried to meet the needs of workers that came to New Kingston after the drive to decentralise the capital's urban metropolis.

"With the flight of the business area from downtown to uptown . and the move to decentralise Kingston in the 1960s we had to accommodate the needs of the workers that came," she said.

"I don't think initially that it was the intention to have it that way."
As group managing director of the state-owned Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, Potopsingh also heads an agency headquartered in New Kingston.

She insists that New Kingston's development has never been arbitrary, involving the use of various information gathering methods to gauge the feeling of its diverse population.

But Newman said he and his neighbours fear that soon their property values will begin to plunge as parking becomes even more of a luxury, and as the roads and other infrastructure deteriorate under increasingly large volumes of traffic and people.

"We want some commitment from the planning authority that our residential areas will be maintained," said Newman.

davisv@jamaicaobserver.com

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